Thema: The Colonizers/ Die Kolonisten

How do European writers describe other world regions, and what views do resident writers here hold? Similarly, how do local writers describe their world and what do European writers think? Which new forms of literary urban self-image are emerging in our globalized world?

In Patrick Deville’s novel, Peste et Choléra (Plague and Cholera), introduced at the European Literature Days 2015, he refers to a dynamic of European colonization since the 19th century which also concerns writers and literature. The endeavour of ‘Europeanization’ of the globe in the name of progress meant that explorers, researchers, scientists as well as travel writers and adventurers set off for supposedly unknown terrain; their accounts of their ideas about foreign cultures set in motion the process of colonization. The military and merchants followed – also in the name of progress – conquering the land and ‘Europeanizing’ it, ultimately leading mainly to chaos. Following the colonial powers’ race for world domination from 1860 until today, the ensuing history of de-colonization in the 20th century and recent and ongoing major shifts in our globalized world, travel writers also shape the image of cultures outside Europe. From Joseph Conrad and Andre Malraux to Hubert Fichte and Bruce Chatwin, in each case they enrich and expand the literature of their countries of origin. Equally, however, their co-involvement influences the image of cultures which they have described. The European Literature Days symposium will firstly consider travel and writing about foreign cultures in a world without borders, as suggested by the frenetic level of air traffic and globalized media. Secondly, it examines a literary and philosophical dimension which the British and Sudanese writer, Jamal Mahjoub, highlighted at the European Literature Days in 2015: what are the lessons from late 20th century post-colonial discourses for today’s discussion about globalization, homelands, languages and new world literatures? How are new forms of urban self-image to be understood? For example, the image of the “Afropolitan” – the African at home in the world – who is not only a world citizen, but also has African roots and leads a successful life in cities around the world? How is it possible to influence this and other concepts that are taking over self-confident European ideas of progress, as well as to modify them in the sense of a new global citizenship? The European Literature Days symposium invites European guest writers whose literary works are set in cultures outside Europe; in turn, they have an opportunity to meet other writers who hail from or are resident in precisely such cultures outside Europe. How is an African country described in a European writer’s novel and how does an African writer treat this? How does Japan feature in a European writer’s novel and in a novel by a Japanese writer? Or an Arab country in a European writer’s novel and a writer from an Arab country? How do European writers describe other regions of the world? To what extent do they disseminate falsehoods about cultures, which they have visited, and to what extent do they open people’s minds to Otherness, or make foreignness appear familiar? Moreover, how truthfully do writers from cultures outside Europe write about their home cultures? In summary: beyond a polarized ‘good-bad’ mentality, how can both sides’ perspectives contribute to a better understanding of our world?